SBOE split on expansion question

Updated 10:48 pm, Saturday, April 14, 2012

AUSTIN — Underfunded, spread thin, and lacking diversity. These are among the challenges facing Texas' State Board of Education, according to lawmakers who are calling for a study of the 15-member board's existing size and ability to serve constituents.

SBOE members are tasked with establishing curriculum standards for about 5 million public school children, overseeing the textbook adoption process and supervising investments in the $26 billion Permanent School Fund. They represent about 1.6 million Texans without a staff or budget.

The elected posts are unpaid and provide no travel stipend, only expense reimbursement for board-related meetings.

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And though minorities make up more than 55 percent of the Texas population, the existing districts are carved up in a way for minorities to win just 33 percent of the seats.

A House Redistricting committee will study the merits of expanding the board to creating smaller districts, which are now nearly double the size of state Senate or congressional districts.

A hearing on Tuesday is unlikely to produce a consensus as many conservatives prefer the current configuration.

Conservative blogger and retired educator Donna Garner wrote recently that a larger board will become more unwieldy, less effective and erode the influence of conservative members.

“If more SBOE districts are created, then this will mean an even better chance for the left-leaning Republicans and the Democrats in the Texas Legislature to divide up SBOE districts so that conservative influence will be marginalized,” Garner wrote.

“What concerned me were the size of the districts and the sheer number of people in those districts,” Solomons said. “You start wondering, ‘is that just too many people, especially since they don't have any real staff?'”

Solomons' committee will issue a report later this year for future lawmakers to consider.

“You need to do something so there's a sense that you're representing the people in your district and the children in the school districts and the parents of school children,” he said. “How do you communicate with all these people?”

Retiring State Board of Education member Bob Craig, R-Lubbock, has represented more than 200 school districts in 75 sprawling counties spread across West Texas.

Carlos Garza, R-El Paso, has only 87 school districts but must travel more than 700 miles into a different time zone to visit some of his districts.

Craig, a Lubbock attorney who is retiring after 10 years on the board, never came close to visiting each of the 200-plus school districts he represents.

Instead, he tried to meet with school board members and superintendents at conferences or events organized by regional education service centers.

“Having 27 members may be too many; 15 may be too few,” said Craig, who favors the debate. “It is a good, healthy discussion to have. It needs to be talked about.”

Terri Leo, R-Spring, is retiring after 10 years. She is against board expansion because, she fears, more members will make it harder to reach decisions on complicated issues with limited time and “too many chiefs at the table.”

“The Legislature has months to deliberate on an issue,” Leo said. “With plans to have the SBOE meeting only four times a year, for only two or three days — and one of those days reserved for public testimony — I don't see how in the world we could reach a consensus on a multitude of issues in that short time frame with more members.”

The State Board of Education once had 27 seats “and failed for that very reason,” Leo said. In 1984, the Legislature reduced the board to 15 members.

Large political bodies tend to be more stable, counters Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, vice chair of the House Redistricting Committee.

“Those that are smaller can more easily be taken over by a faction that then imposes its will on the larger political body,” Villarreal said. “This has certainly been our experience with the State Board of Education where it only takes eight votes to propose any idea and no matter how extreme it is, it goes into effect.”

The board stirred considerable controversy in 2010 while rewriting social studies and history curriculum standards. Civil rights and minority groups fought the board over various interpretations of history and historical accomplishments.

Ten of the 15 board members were non-Hispanic whites developing curriculum standards for a student enrollment that is nearly 70 percent minority.

“The idea that an African American, Hispanic or Anglo cannot represent all of his or her constituents is false and, quite frankly, is an insult to all who serve in this role or any other elected post,” McClure wrote.

But Villarreal contends it is not possible to reflect the state's diverse interests with a small number of members.

“We need to be striving for representative democracy, and we improve our representation when we have a larger number of representatives coming together to make decisions in the interest of the state,” he said.

The current configuration — 10 white, three Hispanic and two black members — he said, exposes “the gap in representation between the status quo vs. the (growing minority) population.”

Demographers expect Hispanics to surpass non-Hispanic whites as the largest population group in Texas as early as 2015.

Increasing the State Board of Education seats will be controversial, likely requiring multiple legislative sessions to resolve.

Solomons said he wanted to start the discussion so lawmakers can take action long before the next redistricting session in 2021.

His committee would focus on the size of the districts and members' ability to communicate with constituents, he said. It would not rehash board actions or focus on “whether people are happy with some of the decisions they make.”